The CFB Degenerate's Newsletter: Are You Not Entertained?
I knew a man once who said, “Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back”.
- Maximus, Gladiator (2000)
First of all, pigs, welcome back. My apologies for skipping last week’s edition as I was occupied with some IRL business. As always, here are some stat tidbits to kick things off today:
TWO. There are only two RBs who have over 100 carries currently and those two are Omarion Hampton and Tahj Brooks. The next highest carry total? 99, belonging to… Duke’s Star Thomas, as we all suspected.
There are also only two RBs with double digit rushing TDs: Dylan Sampson and Ashton Jeanty.
There are two WRs averaging over 30 PPG in 1PPR formats currently and that degenerate scumbag Andrew Katz has both of them in the Golden Pig Invitational league. He is also the #1 seed. I suspect these two things are linked…
TEN. There are currently 20(!) TEs averaging over 10 points per game in 1PPR formats, and four(!!) averaging over 15 PPG. Year of the freshmen? No, it’s the year of the 1PPR Tight End.
TWENTY. SJSU WR Nick Nash has back-to-back games of 20+ targets. In fact, he’s averaging 21.5 over his last two, and 17 per game over the season. His total through four games is 68 targets, which is only nine less than Travis Hunter’s season total last year through nine appearances.
Holy fucking shit. There’s no other acceptable response after what we witnessed on Saturday night from Georgia and Alabama (otherwise known as UGA vs. Alabama PT. I). Truly, if the two most talented rosters in CFB slugging it out in a death match for the ages doesn’t leave you with at least a few hair follicles raised then I don’t know what will. UGA, bizarrely, showed up looking like they had somewhere else to be, only for someone to wake them up in the middle of the second quarter and turn the afterburners on.
Jalen Milroe was oscillating between a spirit animal of 2010 Cam Newton and 2018 Patrick Mahomes—hey wait, I feel like I’ve seen that before somewhere…
Some are calling it the game of the year already. Others claim it was the best SEC game they’ve ever witnessed. I hope you all prepare yourselves because I would wager that this will not be the last time we see these two juggernauts on the same field. It’s very likely that they’ll meet in the SECCG and again in the playoff. If the third meeting happens, and if it also happens to be for the natty, that could very well be the most viewed CFB game of all time.
Anyways, let’s cut the shit. It’s time to give Ryan Williams—who’s only 17 years old by the way, IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T HEARD—his flowers. He put on a phenomenal performance on Saturday, and is undoubtedly going to be a special player for whichever CFB program he chooses to suit up with for the remainder of his collegiate career. I say it that way because I felt the same about Caleb Downs last year, and thought he’d be a franchise player for the Tide for his career, only to find him suiting up for the Buckeyes a month later. Strange times indeed.
I thought the “kill everybody” message on Williams’ face tape went particularly hard. I assume it was a tribute to Alvin from the classic ‘The Program’, but even if Williams is just a complete psychopath, that’s cool too.
As far as my thoughts on the game. I have a few. Jalen Milroe played inspired football, at least, in the first 20 minutes. I think Kirby put it best when it comes to the challenges of defending the Tide’s offence: Milroe would probably be the best RB in the country right now, but he also just so happens to throw passes.
Credit to Alabama’s coaching staff for putting together a good plan to open the game. They out-coached UGA’s staff. However, credit is also due to the UGA staff for their adjustments. They out-adjusted ‘Bama’s staff and one can’t help but feel that if that game was 10 minutes longer, UGA comes out on top. But that’s not how football works, and obviously there’s just no excuse for such a bad start from the Dawgs. Particularly as this game came on the other end of a bye week.
But, and again I think Kirby put it best, you simply cannot double team Ryan Williams because you need the bodies in the box for Jalen. It’s a pick your poison scenario and UGA is one of the only programs in CFB that has the capacity at LB to (at least somewhat) deal with an athlete like Milroe at QB. I, as I assume many others, would like to see this game again. Shoot, I’d like to see a seven game series if we could.
There’s something truly special witnessing a game like this, because you simply will never see this collection of talent on the same field anywhere else. I always think back to the 2019 LSU vs. Alabama game. You literally had four first round WRs one team, and two on the other. Two first round RBs. Two first round QBs and more. NFL teams only get one first round pick per year, which makes it nearly impossible to recreate the talent on the field of these mega CFB showdowns.
Speaking of playing inspired football, how about that diabolical bastard Mark Stoops? This guy lives to play spoiler and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile as much as he did on Saturday after besting the Rebels. Conversely, Kiffen looked like someone just kicked his dog.
Now, onto something both bizarre and interesting. Because I didn’t get a chance to write a recap last week, I am lumping the Matthew Sluka news into this week’s article. Think of it like a two-week recap. This situation is interesting to me because it makes me wonder how much it will happen, or is happening, elsewhere. I look at Western Michigan’s Jalen Buckley, who has been inexplicably missing since week one. Is he actually injured and the staff just don’t want to divulge any information because… well you know: the MAC; or is he preserving another year of eligibility after a P4 reached out following a stellar performance vs. Wisconsin? One is left to speculate.
As far as UNLV is concerned, it appears that they were starting the wrong QB. Well, it happens to the best of us (see Saban choosing Lacross player Tyler Buchner over Milroe vs. USF last year).
For those unaware of what I’m referring to, Matthew Sluka claims that UNLV’s NIL organization was not upholding their end of what was supposedly a 100K promise. Nothing was signed, of course. After all, what’s the point of having an agent if you can’t make puzzling decisions anyway? As such, Sluka announced he’ll be redshirting for the 2024 season. Hajj Malik Williams, the backup, filled in for the former Holy Cross gunslinger and looked better in his first start.
2024 Has Been Unique for CFF
There are three abnormal things that the 2024 CFF campaign has provided thus far:
Incredible year for TEs
Special Freshmen WRs
Service Academy QBs producing consistently
As any CFF wisemen will attest, there have been periods spanning half decades of CFF play where none of these things presented themselves in a single season. And yet, here we have all three coinciding this year in the same CFF campaign.
Let’s start with the first bullet. As was presented in the stat tidbit section at the beginning of this week’s article, there are currently 20 TEs averaging more than 10 PPG in 1PPR formats for CFF as of writing this article. That effectively means that in a standard 12 team league, every owner should have at least one TE averaging over 10 PPG, and many will have two. Seasoned CFF vets will agree that generally, only a select portion of a 12-team league will have the luxury of expecting 10 PPG from the TE position on a weekly basis. So this is unusual.
The next unusual thing is the prominence of true freshman WRs. There are some good RBs too (see Fluff Bothwell and Caden Durham), but the WR position has particularly stood out for the class of 2024. Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Alabama’s Ryan Williams headline the group. Others like the Auburn trio, Clemson’s Bryant Wesco and Texas’ Ryan Wingo provide more intriguing names behind them. Conventional wisdom tells you that there is usually no need to draft true freshmen in CFF (barring some extreme circumstances), because usually it’ll take a month or so for them to work their way into the full rotation anyways, which by that point they would have been most likely cut.
This year is an outlier year for sure, but perhaps more interestingly, maybe this the beginning of a trend that continues for seasons to come. Given the current NIL and transfer portal environment, there is now more pressure than ever—and less depth at big programs—creating the runway for more true freshmen breakouts than before.
The final unusual element of 2024 is the prevalence of CFF-relevant service academy assets. This one is very strange indeed, as the very essence that service academy systems are predicated on is the unpredictability of who’s going to get the ball on any given play. It’s anathema to the #VolumePig mantra. But, this makes them hard to defend, and helps alleviate the talent and size disparity of their rosters relative to other division I. FBS programs. This year, two option QBs, namely Navy’s Blake Horvath, and Army’s Bryson Dailey, appear to be consistent producers (at least through the first four games). Even Navy’s RB, Eli Heidenreich, is getting in on the fun, averaging over 20 points on less than 10 touches per game!
But now seriously, you should really do yourself a favour and watch Horvath’s highlights. Recently on one of my weekly runs with Henri, a friend of mine who’s currently seeded at #3 in the Golden Pig, I referred to Horvath as the “White Lamar Jackson”, which is not something I ever thought I’d say out loud about a service academy player, but here we are. As a shareholder of his in the GPI, my 5-5 squad will be hoping the resemblance on the field extends for the rest of the season. ◾
Poll of the Week
Don’t look now, but the Indiana Hoosiers are 5-0 with a luxuriously soft schedule ahead. Their remaining opponents include Northwestern, Nebraska, Washington, MSU, Michigan, OSU, and Purdue. Could Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers make the CFP this season? And if so, how many B1G teams do you think will be included in the inaugural edition of the 12-team CFP?
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